


Silver Beads

by laliquey



Series: Silver Beads, Brown Bottles [1]
Category: Breaking Bad, True Detective
Genre: Alaska, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Escapism, Fishing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1459360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laliquey/pseuds/laliquey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rust Cohle & Jesse Pinkman work on the same seining boat in Alaska. A continuation can be found <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2225742">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silver Beads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badwips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwips/gifts).



> We were talking about how there should be TD/BB crossover of some sort, then had the realization that Rust canonically made it back to Alaska, & we hope Jesse got himself there, too!

The morning unrolls a dull steel sky, hard and gray as a dead tooth. 

Yesterday's sunrise was Disney Fantasia material, with layered purples and pinks and everything but the soundtrack, but today it's like the unbeating heart of an icebox.

The crew has a mood to match; it's late enough in the run that some have taken to calling the _COLD FRONT_ by a rather crude rhyme instead. Superstition may touch elbows with religion, but Rust can't bring himself to insult the vessel that carries them. He becomes a part of it sometimes, when he guides the cork line into neatly stacked arcs, or when the winch grinds so deep it resonates in his hip sockets.

Over and over they drag up the net and the fish flow into the hold like sleek silver beads. It's a fluid, almost beautiful process until the set ends, when the stragglers flap on deck, glaring their last and making wet slaps like rain. Rust's always tempted to throw one back as a second-chance reward for making it this far, but he bends and flings them into the hold because it's money. 

The fat hog in his hands reads his mind and thrashes so hard he loses it back to the water. “You fuckin' fucker,” he growls, less at the escapee and more at the rivulet of ice-cold water snaking down into one of his gloves. He works through it for a while but there's more than he can ignore...too long and it'll turn his fingers corpse-white and soggy. “Gimme five minutes,” he says, and ignores the testy eye-rolls because he outworks these twenty-something dickwads every day of the week.

The season's stretching toward critical mass, where every guy's on the other guys' last nerve and constant math reels through their subconscious...the money they're making versus whether it's worth the long hours and the reek and irritation of five other men. Some have goals like a house in the lower 48 or a boat of their own, while others are there to escape something else. 

Rust sorts under this category, with his ossified guilt and devil trap dreams. So does their de facto cook Jesse, who blames winter cod jigging for the scars on his face. He does a few deck rotations a day and sews up the net when it needs it, but most of the time he's in the galley like a silent monk wed to his craft. 

He's taken a quiet shine to Rust after he delivered a mild beatdown to the crewmember who scared him with the forepeak hatch every chance he got. He was skittish about the overhead hatch for some reason, and Rust kicked the instigator's ass not out of protective friendship but because they were there to fucking _work_ , not torment each other like junior high. More fish means more money, and he'll be damned if some asshole's gonna fuck him out of nine months of comfortably tanked unemployment.

He peels off his gloves, turns them inside-out, and heads inside, where Jesse's in the galley pinching the stem tips off of green beans. “Hey,” he says, looking up. “Catch any mermaids?"

"Not yet."

"Y'want me to make you something?”

“No thanks." What he wants is a taste of the perpetual pot of coffee, thick and black and hotter than hell. It'll be a minute before he can drink it, so he warms his hands around the cup and watches the hypnotic bean-tipping. He's never cared much about food past necessity, but there's something about this kid's meticulous nature that he can't help but notice and appreciate. On the other three boats he's worked on, it was all powdered eggs, fuck, powdered _everything,_ but the food here's been fresh and thought-out, like it's coming from this guy's cracked heart somehow.

Jesse claims to be from Albany New York, which Rust knows is statistically improbable. Most everyone up here comes from huge northwestern landscapes like Idaho and Wyoming, and they're drawn to places even bigger with even less people. Rust's a geographical fluke himself being from Texas, though he's definitely in tune with the western ethos of silent men who politely ignore other people's business. Still, he can read people, and he'd bet this run's wages that Jesse isn't from Albany at all.

“Heard there was some kinda fight this morning,” he says. “You see it?”

“Um, yeah. I was sort of...in it. Jason called my oatmeal a fucking doorstop.”

“Huh,” Rust says, and tests his coffee. Still magma-hot.

“Oatmeal at 4:00 am isn't gonna be the same stuff at six. Laws of matter and whatnot.” Rust nods and takes a tentative drink – Jesse uses an antique crank-grinder, which is probably why it's always so goddamn good. “I got into this job to insulate myself against drama, you know? But there always is, even with assholes you'd think would eat anything. Like, you can't believe the strong feelings some people have about coconut.”

Rust thinks back. Marty had some real strong feelings about coconut.

“The last fight I got into was about fish,” Jesse continues. “Like, I don't know anything about Lent. I didn't know fish and Lent was a thing, and I'm used to guys wanting to eat _less_ of it, not more, you know?” He wants Rust to laugh but Rust doesn't, and he directs his attention back to bean snapping. “I'm not really into fish anyway, probably 'cause I didn't grow up eating it. Albuquerque's not exactly a fish town.”

Rust notices the slip and tucks it away in his mind. It explains at least one thing about Jesse – the way he turns out real motherfucking posole. Someone from Albany wouldn't even know what that was. “You're not religious, then.”

“Fuck no,” Jesse says with confidence Rust only hears from himself. “Between the shit I've done and the shit that's been done to me, there is no God. There can't be.” 

He seems so defiant and sure at first, but then Rust senses it slide. There's pain and guilt twisted in a double helix as tight as rope inside this kid, but it's not Rust's job to break people down into quivering messes anymore. He changes the subject. “You got a girl anywhere?”

“No,” Jesse says. “Not anymore. I'm kinda done with women.”

 _That makes two of us._ "Kids?"

“No, man. I got major issues with kids. Not like a pervert, I mean I can't stand to see 'em hurt.” He tosses a stem end in the wrong pile. “It's probably not a healthy way to deal with it, but I don't want any and I don't want to be around 'em ever again.”

“Nothin' unhealthy about that,” Rust says, and wonders what the hell happened. Once he heads back out, Jesse's likely to steep in whatever it was; he knows how useless the gravity of that is and tries again to turn it around. “You know, I used to be married to a _Bon Appetit_ subscriber, but I don't think I've ever eaten better than on this boat.” 

Jesse gives him a shy smile.

“I heard a rumor that you put a lot of your own paycheck back into the pantry, is it true?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I don't give a shit about money. Like, at all.”

“Huh.” Rust nods in appreciation. “What do you give a shit about?”

“Um...homebrew, I guess. I can't make it on the boat 'cause the bottles would explode, but I have a friend in Kenai that lets me keep a little operation in his basement. I've got a batch of rye stout and a Scotch ale in there right now.”

“Huh. I've heard there's a real art and science to that.”

“Yeah, exactly. It's chemistry,” Jesse says, and his voice gets quieter, almost confessional. “I used to be a different kind of cook.” 

It hangs there a minute. They could stop here and that would be the end of it. 

“I'm guessin' meth,” Rust ventures. Jesse nods and considers his next words carefully while Rust pretends to listen with only cursory interest.

“There was this guy I knew. A chemist, a brilliant one. I guess he was supposed to be, like, my mentor or whatever.” 

It snags in Rust's periphery, and he sits forward.

_Albuquerque._

He's heard about this. Blue meth, and Steve Stevens or whoever that guy was.

“He was the nicest guy. He liked cooking, too. Food, I mean, like gourmet shit. He was into all kinds of strange stuff, like jazz music and old cartoons. He was one of those guys that had a girl's name.”

Rust sits back. Maybe not. Or maybe...

“I thought that was so funny at first, and now I don't know how I could've been such a dick.” Jesse sighs hard and digs back into the beans with new energy. “Anyway, I kind of fucked up his life. Like, permanently, and I want to do good by him now. Feed the guys who catch the fish that feed everybody else. God, that sounds like biblical shit or something...”

Rust sees it as plain as beans. _He's a killer._ A reluctant, haunted killer who's run away, as if any distance will ever be far enough. "You did it because you had to,” he says, and Jesse shrinks somehow. “We'll do terrible things when it doesn't seem like there's any other way.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says, husky and low. “I guess.”

He flinches when the door squeals open, but the profanity that tumbles in isn't for him. “Cohle! Get your narrow fucking ass back out here! There's a million fish out here with your name on 'em, asshole!”

Jesse seems to need the reprieve and pretends to stretch. “Guess that's your cue.”

“Guess so,” Rust says, and pulls out a cigarette for each of them.

“Thanks, man. You have no idea...I was down to my last pack yesterday and it got wet.”

“Happy to share,” Rust says dryly. “I probably brought enough to kill us both five times.” 

Jesse half-smiles, but then tightens and looks down at his work. “So I know you hate socializing and all, but if you want...maybe sometime we could, like, have a drink or something.”

“Only if it's drinks plural,” Rust says, and maybe he'll get this kid's entire story, or maybe they won't talk about anything older than last week. He'd welcome either because he likes him. “If this run ever fuckin' ends, I'd like to know your beer turns out.” 

Jesse _glows_ at that. “Great. Yeah. I mean, it'll be great. The beer or whatever. Yeah.”

Rust gives him the remainder of his cigarettes, then wrestles his gloves back into shape and heads back out into the colorless cold, where the fish are scattered like a broken necklace and untarnished men are almost as common as mermaids. 


End file.
